It has been a long and tiresome hunting season for the Predator; two films and two rotten-to-the core crossovers later, and the titular alien menace is still being called up by Hollywood to don the ol’ metal faceplate and perm the dreadlocks. The good news for our alien trophy-seekers is that Nimrod Antal’s Predators is as close as they have come to a worthwhile fight since the original. Not as perfectly paced or creatively charged as John McTiernan’s 1987 action classic, Predators is still up for giving die-hard audience members a chase worth getting in line for.

Producer Robert Rodriguez has long talked up his concept for a third Predator film, with the humans being beamed directly to an alien game preserve where they could be hunted at leisure by faster, shinier, more menacing variations of the same sinister species that provoked Schwarzenneger all those years ago. As it turns out, this idea works well for rebooting the franchise and wiping away the sting of Predator 2 and the dual tragedy of Alien Vs. Predator and AVP: Requiem (cue snickering). The script even remembers those events from Predator 87, but mercifully it seems amnesiac on the rest of the lot.

Falling one by one out of the sky, a varied and mysterious team of death-mongers—Yakuza, death-row inmates, mercs, and a wayward scientist—find themselves in a place that looks similar to a jungle on Earth. Adjusting to their surroundings and each other, it isn’t long before the revelation of multiple moons and vicious, other-worldly fauna cause them to question exactly where in the universe they are.

When they start getting gruesomely picked off by shadowy creatures in the dark of the jungle, the movie ramps up and delivers the thrills and kills the faithful have been waiting for. Those looking forward to intergalactic bloodshed won’t be disappointed; spinal cords are ripped, green blood runs as freely as red, and there’s even time for some predator on predator violence. When it comes to full-bore mayhem, the contained hunt of Predators easily bests the near apocalyptic onslaught of other blockbusters.

The cast pulled together here does a commendable job of portraying individual grit and together as a team, begrudging endurance as a fighting unit. Danny Trejo, Alice Braga, and Topher Grace sound like an unlikely group, and that in many ways is the point. With Brody’s loner mercenary at the forefront, this eclectic assembly isn’t by accident.

The predators have rigged the jungle, rallied their alien bloodhounds, and even remembered to internally snag their prey by hand-picking not just for battle aptitude but for disparity that might detonate them from within. When Laurence Fishburne’s crazed survivor, too long hiding out in the jungle shows up, Antal and company explore another dimension to the picture that focuses on the predators themselves and the curious tribalism that defines their species.

As an action director I really dig the style of Nimrod Antal, but I’d much prefer to see him tackling films in his own country again, since his debut, Kontroll, is far more powerful and hard-hitting than anything he’s done over here. Antal is the very definition of a journeyman director, taking big gigs and doing a solid but often unremarkable job of them. He gets the pacing, the special effects, and the character interaction down perfectly, but he’s also not bringing anything extra or inspiring to the table. This is less his fault and more the work of the scripters who came before him and decided to write Predators so closely to the original film that almost any legitimate suspense or ingenuity has been wiped away.

The monsters are well designed, and the alien critters who run down the survivors for their Predator masters are believable and threatening. Breaking the predators into two camps, one an older, more worn down caste (the dude who fought Arnold was one of these) and the other a virile and more aggressive contingent, is pure fan boy pandering all the way. Here’s the thing, though. It works.

Adrien Brody, who seems miscast at first, gives his mercenary a welcome sense of cold humanity. Physically, he’s not as imposing as the big Austrian who tussled with these guys the first go-round, but he’s toned up not just his body but also his adrift nice-guy persona to give a turn as a man who doesn’t need to fight the predators with brawn if he can utilize his wits and the predators own cultural hang-ups against them. It’s never going to come down to a one on one fight this time, so Brody stacks the deck in another way, and it leads to the goofy fun third act that betrays the slow build of the earlier sections at the same time it’s giving us just what we want from a movie about alien game hunters tracking hapless human prey.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Last weekend Robert Rodriguez debuted a new poster and footage for his highly anticipated Predators, the latest addition to a sci-fi film franchise that began with Schwarzenegger in 80s.

Today, we have a full blown trailer for the movie, and it looks amazingly faithful to the spirit and sense of adventure of the original. In fact, this looks like the sequel we wanted all along.

Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne and Topher Grace may not initially sound like they belong in the arena with the galaxy’s most fearsome hunters, but once you get a look at Brody, grime-covered and sweat stained, battling it out with the titular beasties, any thought of improper casting goes out the window. Throw in the always welcome Danny Trejo as a gnarly warrior and it’s gonna be a good time for sure.

I’m personally digging Fishburne in the hardened survivor role. The plot isn’t anything amazing, and the Predator home world looks surprisingly like the jungles of the first film, but there’s an old school feel to the fx, the cinematography and even the acting style that suggests a return to the basics.

I’m guessing Nimrod Antal, the director, is more responsible for this than Rodriquez. Antal, the foreign filmmaker who gave us the exquisite Kontrol, and the serviceable American thrillers Armored and Vacancy, has an artist’s touch for gritty and believable settings.

Personally, this has just jumped to the very top of my summer must-see list.

What do you think? Adding an s  to the title worked wonders for Alien back in 79. What will it do here?

On Friday night fans at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, TX were treated to two trailers and one scene from the upcoming film, Predators. Produced by Robert Rodriguez, the film is a sequel to the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film and stars Adrien Brody as Royce, a mercenary and leader of a group of warriors who come to realize that they have been brought to an alien planet as prey. The hunters become the hunted.

After the screening, Rodriguez hosted a live Q&A. While shying away from revealing any more plot details, concept art from the film was shown, as well as a working Predator head prop. During the discussion, Rodriguez said that he has no intention to release the film in 3D and he also promised that, “This would be the real sequel.”

On Saturday, Rodriguez, director Nimród Antal, and star Adrien Brody, sat down with the press for a short interview. Antal said that he wants focus on “the hunt” — the element that made the original work so well. He also said he put “a lot of thought into mood and tone” and vowed to keep the monster in the shadows for as long as possible.

Hopefully, Predators proves to be a return to the suspense of the original. There is a good chance it will, too, as the movie seems to be heavily influenced by “The Most Dangerous Game,” the famous 1924 short story by Richard Connell in which a hunter is hunted on a mysterious island.

Missed the footage at SXSW? Watch the sneak peek over at the official Predators site and keep an eye out for the trailer, which drops March 18th.

Predators hits theaters July 9th.

Nimrod Antal’s Armored feels like a film from a different time; specifically, an action thriller from the late 1990s. It’s the kind of second tier B movie that might have starred Cuba Gooding Jr. in the lead, Michael Keaton in the Dillon role, and Laurence Fishburne in the same role he’s got here.  Due to the shrieking chaos of most modern action films, this fact actually proves to be a good thing.

Under the skilled direction of Antal, Armored trades up shaky cam and overcooked editing for expertly shot and nerve-jangling chase sequences that feel inspired by 1970′s crime thrillers. The second string cast, including Dillon, Fishburn, Ulrich and the always dependable Ward, all deliver down-to-earth performances that fit the characters.

Unfortunately, a predictable plot rife with holes and inconsistencies and a script banged together from old heist clichés shoots the movie in the foot before it can pull off the big caper.

The basic set-up has been highlighted in the film’s far too revealing trailer; a group of blue collar armored-car guards decide to rob their own vehicle and abscond with the money. Ty Hackett (Columbus Short) is the rookie who has taken the job because he needs the money to take care of his adolescent brother after the death of their parents. Dillon plays Hackett’s godfather Michael, and the leader of the gang. Fishburne is Baines, the boozy loudmouth; Reno the tough and shady Frenchman (what else?); Ulrich the flunkie; Nolasco the born-again Christian who carries a bible but who isn’t above stealing if they can get away with it. The timing is perfect, the haul is an obscene amount of cash, and Hackett is about to be foreclosed on and his little brother taken away to foster care. There it is then. In a time of economic hardship it’s a dream plan that doesn’t involve a single fired shot or anyone being harmed.

If you have seen enough movies—probably two—then you will know that things don’t go as planned, and after a too long set-up that gets the pair of armored cars to an abandoned warehouse everything falls apart. What happens next is described in explicit detail in the film’s promotional materials, but I’m not going through it here. Armored has so few secrets and surprises that far be it from me to take them from you. Columbus Short, as Hackett, comes into his own during the second half and he has enough charisma and presence that he distracts from the silliness that follows.

Antal retraces similar steps he made with 2007’s Vacancy, which found Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale at the mercy of a gang of snuff filmmakers at a remote hotel. Both movies work just fine as cracker-jack thrillers, and Armored does its job with considerable less nastiness than its predecessor. Action fans who have recently been fed an over-abundance of flashy, loud chaos might be rightfully pleased with this one. Just don’t go in expecting it to fulfill many of its promises outside an hour and a half of decent thrills.

I actually wish that Armored had gone a little more in the direction of an over-the-top B movie instead of the grungy working-class realism it settles for. Once things go wrong for these  guys, the plot stops operating in the real world and starts flying free of plausibility. A little crazy might have helped it, but it never wants to commit. There is a superb battle between two armored cars in the midsection and the clanging, smashing vehicles careen through the dusty warehouse yard as if they were on their way to Thunderdome. Fred Ward plays the manager of the security guards and his team tells stories about the time he wasted six men. But we never get to see him do anything besides sit behind a desk, and after that first chase scene, the armored cars are pretty much stationary. All of the pieces are here and Antal does what he can with them, but Armored makes the mistake of aiming for too small a piece of the haul.

Movie rating:

The infamous space Rastafarian will soon be setting his three red dot sights not only upon Danny Trejo, but also upon Adrien Brody (King Kong) and Topher Grace (Spiderman 3).

That’s right, director Nimrod Antal’s Predators, scripted and produced by Robert Rodriguez for Troublemaker Studios, seems to have gone off the deep end as far as casting decisions go — alongside Trejo, Brody, and Grace, we’ll also have Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, I Am Legend‘s Alice Braga and the UFC’s Oleg Taktarov.

The film will deal with a group of manly warriors (of which Brody is inexplicably a part) as they fight off a group of Predators, while the plot is thickened by Grace’s role as “an accountant-type whose unassuming facade masks a dangerous serial killer.”

This is definitely shaping up to be a project more akin to Rodriguez’s catalog than anything we’re familiar with in the past Predator series. It sounds like just the shot in the arm the series needs, too, after Alien vs. Predator: Requiem.

Predators starts shooting next month in Hawaii, then will move back to film in Austin, TX at Troublemaker, and will be released on July 9, 2010. More info on the film here at AtomicPopcorn.net as the project further de-cloaks.

Robert Rodriguez’s long-gestating Predator sequel that’s finally underway at his Troublemaker Studios is finally getting some details fleshed out, largely due to a script review by LatinoReview.com.

The sequel, entitled Predators (which seems to be a blatant nod of the head to James Cameron’s one-upping of Alien) not only has a solidified cast member — Danny Trejo of From Dusk Till Dawn and Heat fame playing “Cuchillo” — but the script has been reviewed and said to be “awesome … a bloody, hard-R, violent script reminiscent of the original.”

For a spoiler-filled review of the script, head over to our source and watch their video. Predators will begin shooting in Hawaii soon under the direction of Vacancy director Nimrod Antal, from a script by Robert Rodriguez, Michael Finch, and Alex Litvak. This script has been underway since the Desperado days, so let’s see if Predator finally has a worthy sequel on its hands.

One thing’s for sure — I think we can count on 100% less Danny Glover.

Confirmed by the guys over at Ain’t It Cool News, the director to take part in the latest eighties remake has been chosen. Director Nimrod Antal, and no that is his real first name, who’s most recent work Armored will crash into theaters December 4th is filling up the seat. Previous work of the filmmaker includes the 2007 thriller Vacancy.

In an interview with Robert Rodriguez, he discloses a tiny bit of information in regards to the plot:

But it still involves a very intense group of people stranded on a Predator planet discovering unspeakable horrors (that are not always from outside their group). So like the original movie, the title does have a double meaning.
Aliens was a different take on the Alien idea, and an original movie in it’s own right, and that’s what we want to do with this.

As to how this movie will be viewed, one of the guys at Fox told me “No one is ever going to talk about AVP again after this film, I will stake my life on it.”

Rodriguez is currently attached as a producer on this film, also with his well known company Troublemaker Studios.